asus eee pc 1000ha

I just got this a few days ago (not from Amazon) and am really happy with it. As far as I can tell, it's very similar to the Asus 1000H, but it doesn't have wireless n (just b/g) and it doesn't have bluetooth. For me, that was worth the $50 savings over the 1000H.

Pros:
Good size. It's really easy to carry around. I hate carrying my full size laptop back and forth to work. This one slips nicely into my bag.

Battery life. I get about 4 hours from the battery. I think I could squeeze more out if I used the power saving option and turned off the wireless when I'm not using it. (new note: with power saving options turned on, I get just over 5.5 hrs from the battery. That also reflects having 2gb of RAM installed. - 10/26/08) Still good enough that I don't bring my power cord with me to work unless I'm going to use it all day. And way better than the other netbooks I looked at.

Ease of upgrade. I'm not very tech savvy. However, it was WAY easy to open up my 1000HA and pop in a 2gb memory stick, and junk the 1gb stick that comes with this. You just need a small Phillips screwdriver. No weird keyboard lifting and no cracking open cases and no voiding of warranties. I almost bought the Acer Aspire One, which I think is better looking, but it's apparently more technically difficult to upgrade. The hard drive looks easy to upgrade, too. FYI, if you DO upgrade the memory yourself, make sure to F2 into the BIOS on startup. No need to change any settings in the BIOS, but the BIOS needs to automatically recognize the 2gb memory (Windows won't recognize it without the BIOS acknowledgment first).

Weight. Light, but still feels substantial, so it doesn't feel like it's going to fall apart.

Asus name. I guess Asus isn't a big household name, but at least I've heard about eeePC for a little while. I almost bought the MSI Wind, which looked pretty easy to upgrade, too. But I got scared since I hadn't actually seen an MSI Wind anywhere. If someone wants to send me a free one, I'll evaluate it and re-write this review. =)

Cons:
The shift key on the right hand side of the keyboard is in an awkward place. I'm hopeful that my brain will eventually learn where it is so I don't hit the arrow keys or the enter key by mistake all the time, but until then, it's kind of annoying. On the plus side, the rest of the keyboard works great, and I can still type comfortably with it.

Glossy cover. It picks up some fingerprints. Boo. I hear the Fine Ebony version picks up even more fingerprints. They include a good neoprene-like sleeve and a fingerprint buffing cloth to keep the netbook fresh and clean, which is kind of neat.

I received my ASUS EEE PC 1000HA on Friday, October 18, 2008. 1000HA is, in every nook and cranny, similarly designed like the 1000H. The only functionality differences are: Blue-Tooth and wireless "n" connectivity - which are not in 1000HA.

Individuals have various needs for BT and the "n" connectivity. The difference in cost between 1000H and 1000HA is around $50. Remember everything else is the same on these two models.

I have posted many pictures while unboxing the package. The pictures may help you make a better buying decision, just go to www.trashtalkforum.com.

Many others, including myself, were going to buy the Acer Aspire One (Intel ATOM 1.6Ghz with 8.9" LCD screen, but I ma glad that I didn't. The screen on the 1000HA is just perfect for me - a girl with small hands and -2.25 vision on both eyes. 10" LCD works great for gaming, browsing, watching movies, and image editing. I will elaborate on gaming, movies and image editing, with sample pictures on my website. I'm not sure if html codes are allowed on this forum.

When I first booted it up, I had to go through the XP initial user setup. After spending 8 minutes completing that, I was able to log into Windows. It does not come with FireFox, Safari or Opera. The only browser is IE 6. I updated to FireFox 3.X.X. My router is a LinkSys Wireless router. Right now the wifi adapter on the 1000HA says the network speed is 54Mpbs. Asus EEE PC uses a very good ethernet adapter made by Atheros.

Regardless of the underclocked CPU (1.32 Ghz by ASUS), the 1000HA runs smoothly and so far has not crashed at all. I have run Counter Strike Condition Zero, Warcraft III Frozen Throne, and a few other free first person shooter games that are 2 to 3 years old. 160GB HDD is partitioned into two 80GB HDD. It initially slowed down a little bit and perhaps skipped some frames when I tried to run a large video file of HIGH RESOLUTION DIVX ON VLC PLAYER. After losing that little bit of FPS, it played just fine! Not to mention I was actually running 2 FireFox windows each with 3 tabs, Windows Live Messenger, File Explorer, all simultaneously. I am a heavy-user...

It opens up Adobe Acrobat Reader just fine, with no lagging.

It can handle image editing but I haven't tried that with Photoshop, I just used Photoscape - an free alternative lightweight program.

Finally the battery efficiency is just amazing. Acer Aspire One 1.6Ghz Intel Atom/ASUS EEE 1000H/1000HA all run on 6-cell battery. What changed my mind about the Acer, besides the screen and keyboard size, was the battery's "mAh" - milliampere-hour, a measure of a battery's total capacity. Acer Aspire One 1.6 Ghz, if I remember correctly, has a 6-cell 2700 mAh battery. Asus EEE pc 1000H/1000HA has a 6-cell 6700 mAh battery. Electrochemically speaking, the higher the measurement is the better and longer-lasting the battery is (under proper care of course). A 2700 mAh rechargable battery is not considered inferior at all, but in this comparison against the Asus EEE PC 1000H/1000HA, it's being outshined.

Asus EEE 1000H/1000HA model provides easy access to RAM upgrade. It can be easily upgraded to 2GB with a super simple installation. Acer Aspire One.....will make you work if you are not very "techie." I have seen an attempt by someone to upgrade to a 4GB ram but I don't know if it's any successful sincce I have forgotten the link to that forum which I visited 4 days ago.

Hard drive can also be upgraded easily to whatever size you like, whether it's 320 GB or 650GB, as long as it's the right specs and size.

There is onboard control for almost everything - sound, one-botton resolution readjustment, brightness, LCD-off (the system remains on), wifi-off, sleep mode etc.

The multi-touch keypad is pretty cool too but won't be as responsive without a good individual customization. It works like an iPhone, with two fingers going diagonally on the pad you can choose to zoom in/out on the screen. With two fingers going veertically, you can scroll up and down the web browser or anything that has more than one page. Remember there are two SHIFT keys on your normal keyboard? Well the new keyboard, due to its reduced size, will take you a lot to get used to. The SHIFT key right below the enter-key is reduced to a squared finger-tip size key, and I frequently hit the the uparrow when I meant to hit the shift key on my righthand side.

1000HA has a SHINY REFLECTIVE-surfaced 1.3 mega pixel web cam. 3 USB ports, audio/mic jack, VGA out, speaks on the bottom, and a ethernet jack if you prefer wired network/internet. I will post pictures on my website at www.trashtalkforum.com so you can see what I'm talking about.